China, Protector Of Freedom? Doubtful.

July 24, 2008

As
Beijing gears up to host this year's Olympic Games, we asked Perry Link, professor
of East Asian Studies at Princeton University, to give us his perspective on
how China is responding to the challenge. He will be guest-blogging for us over
the next few weeks:

The
Chinese government, speaking
through the top security official for the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee,
has named three parks in Beijing
where "the police will safeguard the right to demonstrate." Some
have hailed this as a breakthrough.

Hmmm.
The Chinese Constitution (Article 35) states that "citizens of the
People's Republic of China
enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of
procession, and of demonstration." In theory this grand pronouncement
covers all of China,
all 9.6 million square kilometers. Now we have the "breakthrough" of
rights being safeguarded in an area about one millionth the size of the whole.

And
even there, the safeguarding will apply to foreign protesters only. No sane
Chinese will imagine that expression of unapproved opinion on an issue that China's rulers consider "sensitive"
(e.g., the June Fourth Massacre, Falungong, corruption among families of the
top leaders, or independence for Taiwan,
Tibet,
or the Uighur nation)
can be done without fearsome cost. Plainclothes police will be watching, as
will cameras. The New York Times has reported
that Honeywell, General Electric, and United Technologies "have all been
aggressively pursuing contracts in China
to sell advanced surveillance equipment from the United States."

For
foreign protesters, the carving out of a few "free speech zones" will
seem to fall into a pattern that cities hosting G8 meetings have used and that Athens adopted in hosting
the 2004 Olympic Games. But for Beijing
citizens, another pattern will come to mind. In 1978, when Deng Xiaoping wanted
to show popular support for his reversal of Maoist policies, he briefly allowed
free expression at a "Democracy Wall" on Chang'an Street in the Xidan District. After
a few months, when Deng had heard enough, he decided to bottle things up. But
he couldn't just close the Wall. That would be too big a loss of face. (He had
to continue pretending that the Chinese people have "freedom of
speech," after all.) So the Wall was "moved" to Ritan Park,
where people had to sign in and give their addresses and work-unit names before
posting anything. Anyone whose opinion was "incorrect" then got a
visit from authorities.

The same Ritan
Park is one of the three
"protest zones" this time around.